Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Bula Ami and Poppi!

Another chapter in the Sherry family closed this month...Ami and Poppi returned home from their eighteen month mission to Fiji. They served half their time in Ba on the island of Viti Levu and the other part on the small island Taveuni. Birch and I are so grateful that we had the opportunity to meet many of the people my parents fell in love with and so first hand be able to envision the living conditions, beauty of the island and people, and hardships they triumphed in Fiji. The physical separation had a different impact with all the interaction our family was still able to enjoy via google chat and skype throughout their mission. With both of our blogs and many internet chats we still felt well connected we were just missing the piece of actual physical contact.

The lucky folks that live in Salt Lake City got to be there for the actual flight arrival onto US soil. Thanks to my sister Leah who documented everything so we could feel apart of the celebration.

They had a huge shock as they flew in wearing sandals and skirts (yes, both of them) to a spring snow storm. They spend the next several weeks in Utah with each grandkid's family and had several opportunities to be all together at a baby blessing and 40th birthday party. Next stop was Spokane to see Emily and Ryan then down to our house.

We had a great few days together! They drove in Saturday morning just in time to catch Nate's last soccer game of the season. Alex loved having Poppi's expertise as he worked on a project for a class. My dad was a huge help in assisting Birch in installing new blinds in the basement windows, driving Alex to seminary, re-grouting the kitchen backplash/counter edge, and taking the Alysee and Tyler to school as they seemed to miss the bus each day.

My mom was amazing as usual and cleaned the fridge and the major project was de-icing my outside freezer. I wish I had a before picture so you could fully appreciate all her chiseling. There was a good six or seven inches of ice on the top shelf. After she got it all cleaned out I had the pleasure of sorting through my freezer hording and got rid of some ancient food and then even labeled my bins so we actually all know where to find all the goods. You can also see in the freezer all the strawberry jam my mom and I made out of all the strawberry puree that I had frozen but never used previously.

Our ward's primary was lucky enough to have my parent's do sharing time the Sunday they were visiting. It was their first of many presentations and it was AWESOME. Since our primary theme this year is "I am a child of God" I asked them to focus on how the children in Fiji live and how Heavenly Father loves all his children no matter where they live. They did a terrific job and all the kids (and teachers) loved every minute!

It wasn't all work, though. My mom and I went to her first ZUMBA class (I just started going a month ago), went out for frozen yogurt, played outside, watched this past year's ABH movie, and enjoyed long talks.

We were all sad to see them pack up Wednesday morning but honestly if it were me I would have been chomping at the bit to get home after having been gone for almost two years. We're excited to see Ami and Poppi several times this summer!!